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I have to get past the entirety of TBC in which Shaman was the whipping boy
Are you kidding me? Shaman were the golden children of PVE in TBC, due to, in no particular order: totems, unleashed rage, chain heal, heroism rotations, mana tide, earth shield, ancestral healing, and probably one or 2 other things I'm forgetting at the moment. Honestly, shaman would commonly receive 5 raid invites to a 25man. What other class can claim that kind of representation?
And once again, we received more buffs than nerfs over the course of TBC. Damage reduction on shammy rage, MP5 on watershield, mana cost reduced for water/lightening shield, snare reduction on toughness, .5 secs off of GCD from totems, -1 sec cast time ghost wolf, AP--> spell damage, replacement of 2H spec with shamanistic focus, increased threat reduction on spirit weapons, reduced tick time on tremor totem, increased range on several totems, and dispel resist added to elemental shields (via resto talent) are all examples of buffs received (enhance especially got a lot of love).
What did we loose? Well, ele lost the ability to chain together EM/NS, there was the change of LB from 3-->2.5 sec base cast (nerf for ele, but arguably buff for resto), the fixing of the WF5/WF4 bug, and a couple of other things I can't immediately recall. Oh, and the indirect nerf to shaman via WFT, where yellow attacks, (particularly spamstring warriors) couldn't proc WF anymore.
Yes yes, we all know that shaman aren't the best in arena, particularly in 2v2 (slightly less so in 3v3), and that they are not as versatile in a wide variety of comps as, oh, say a rogue. It was still possible to do quite well however (war/pally/resto sham can do well in 3s, cleave comps in 5s for example). Remember however that 2s and 3s will pretty much always be "unbalanced"; even the devs say as much.
The beta developments look to be very promising on the whole in making a more dynamic style of play, while expanding our capabilities a bit. Once the numbers pass happens, I'm pretty sure that we'll be looking just fine.
In short, once again, no the sky is not falling as some may claim, and the class will be fine.